Having a private forum for staff members to communicate?

Do you have a private forum for staff members to communicate? I find this VERY important, a staff forum can be very beneficial for staff to discuss important site related matters in private and generally just communicate with each other privately. Its beneficial to any forum, do you have one for yours?

 

Yes, it's extremely important, and is quicker and easier than always using PMs to do all the discussing, etc.

 

To most forums, it's a necessity. You need it to discuss things you don't want members to hear about. PM's you can forward which can cause problems. (Big problems.) The only downside of making a staff only forum is the permissions. Sometimes you can make it so members can read stuff they are not supposed to. >.< That would be a pain to fix.

 

that would be why you make use of the check permissions options available

 

Yea tell me about it lol.

As ashley mentioned you need to be careful with your permissions and always check it whenever you add a new section or feature for usergroups.

 

Yes I do, I find it very important because I run my forum like a democracy. I make important decisions but I like to get my opinion on all changes anyways. They have stopped me from doing a few dumb things already.

 

Yea a staff forum can come in very handy, and the one here on AdminBB is used quite often and I liked how you mentioned you run your forum like a democracy, thats what I do here, I dont think there would be any members if I just were a dictator

 

Yeah, once you add other staff members, it's critical. It is where you discuss problem members, calculate the direction you want to push your community, thank your mods, etc.

And depending on the forum software you use, I always set up a "Trash Can" subforum as a part of my staff area. And that is where all deleted threads ended up. That way if a mod deleted something, I, as the admin, could still always see/review things. Hardly anything was ever actually deleted. Just taken out of the public.

 

Yea a trash can is a must have for any forum but thats a whole other discussion http://admin-talk.com/threads/do-you-have-a-trash-section-on-your-forum.2933/ (We have a discussion for just about everything lol)

 

Yes, I always have whenever I've ran a forum. I find them pretty important to communicate with staff and organise contests and events.

 

I always had a staff forum no matter what, it's the best way to keep in contact with staff members. Many people don't use IM programs and using the PM section on a forum is good but you can't always get all the staff included in a discussion.

 

Our staff forum doesn't get used too often, but most of the staff communicate via private messages, and if we feel that an issue needs to be pushed, we post about it on the staff board.

 

Ours as you know is not too active either but I feel its still important to have one, as I much rather post then PM. But the PM system does get used often also.

 

Of course. Infact, our staff lounge thread is the biggest thread on site with near 1500 replies.

 

Wow that is alot for a thread in the staff section.. our whole staff forum has only 456 posts lol. Your forum is big and active so I can see why.

 

It's almost a no brainer in my opinion Every forum needs one, unless you're the only staff member.

And on my forum the staff forum is almost even with the General Chat forum with 645 posts.

 

Very nice, is it mainly about users, or general chat as well?

 

Wow, our staff forum is really inactive just like our general section but I like it that way as our other sections get all the attention. We only use the staff forum for important things.

 

I recently added this one to my forum but I don't expect to be the most active thread on the forum

 

Forums without a Staff Hideout would ruin the staffs communication and then they will do there own things e.g. Infracting for a new rule or making a new rule.